NBC is determined to play by its own rules when it puts its TV content online, and this week brought more of the same with the launch of NBC Direct. The new service's focus is on allowing customers to download shows and watch them offline—something that NBC customers have been unable to do since the studio's departure from the iTunes Store. NBC purports to address the different needs of its users, but when we took a look at NBC Direct, we found that the limitations were endless, rendering the service impractical and overall not worth the effort required to use it.

Let's start with the technical limitations. NBC Direct is Windows-only—the company says in its online FAQ that Mac users can use Boot Camp to run Windows for the time being, but that "full" Mac and Linux support is coming in early 2008. It is also limited to Internet Explorer 6 or higher in order for the proprietary software to interface with NBC Direct's web site—Firefox users, even on Windows, are just out of luck. Users must also have Windows Media Player 10 or higher installed (for delicious DRM goodness), .NET 2.0 or higher, and Flash 8 or higher installed.

Firefox? Bzzt! Try again.

Downloaded shows are limited to a single computer (the machine it was downloaded on), cannot be burned to CD or DVD, and can't even be backed up to an external hard drive. You can't transfer them to an external media player, either, even if it's Windows Media DRM-compatible. Forget trying to go anywhere with these shows—they must be viewed inside of the NBC Direct software, and nowhere else.

On to the content! Or lack thereof, we should say. Hopeful viewers cannot actually watch most NBC shows via NBC Direct (what, you were hoping for variety?). There are currently six videos available for your viewing pleasure—that is, six total, not the episodes from six TV series. Viewers can choose from the most current episodes of Life, Bionic Woman, 30 Rock, The Office, Friday Night Lights, and Heroes. Each episode is only posted for seven days after its final airing in Hawaii, and then expires for good. If you were planning on catching up on the latest season, you'll have to look for other, less legal options.

NBC Direct's proprietary client

Through the player or the web site, you can choose which episodes you want to download or subscribe to. A subscription allows you to automatically download a video when it becomes available—helpful if you want to stay on top of new episodes. But you only have 48 hours from download to watch the episode. If 48 hours passes, you have to renew your temporary license in order to view the video, which is simple enough to do through the player. The point of this, however, is questionable—if the video is going to expire within seven days of broadcast anyway and renewing a temporary license is going to be as easy as a single click, why even include the step, except to make it it more annoying to use the service? The videos are ad-supported (and users cannot skip over the ads), but that's not surprising, considering that the content is offered for free.

Finally, our experiences. After jumping through all the hoops to install the NBC Direct software, we selected a few of the currently-available shows to download. Checking the "My Videos" tab, claims the player, will show you the download progress of all the selected videos.

However, our videos did not download—they perpetually displayed "Pending" across the progress bar, even after being left for several hours. Multiple reboots later, we could just not coax the darn things to download. At one point, we got an error saying that a script in Flash 9 was causing the software to run slowly and should be aborted. When we clicked Abort, the software was not happy and eventually froze. Another time, we were greeted with a simple message: "Storefront is Offline." (Our colleagues at the New York Timesran into trouble viewing the videos as well, with only the ads repeating over and over instead of the content.)

This thing does not want us to download videos.

I was never able to view any of the NBC Direct content. Other members of the Ars staff were able to make it to a show or two, however, reporting that video quality was good and there were few hiccups in service. Videos can be viewed in fullscreen mode through the NBC Direct player.

NBC Direct's beta launch comes on the heels of the Hulu private beta, another venture of NBC's to offer—you guessed it—its content online by its own rules. Hulu is not without its own limitations, of course, but when compared to NBC Direct, it seems like a glorious, freedom-filled haven. Since Hulu's videos are limited to the Web, they are platform-agnostic and start playing instantaneously. And the choice of content is far greater than what can be watched through NBC Direct (I am well into season one of Doogie Howser, M.D. through Hulu, but there are a fairly large number of current shows as well, including those offered through NBC Direct).

Hulu shows can't be downloaded or taken offline in any manner, but given the number of limitations on NBC Direct, one could argue that they can't through NBC Direct, either. What's the point of being able to "download" a show if you can't do anything more with it? If forced to choose between NBC Direct and Hulu, I would choose Hulu in a second. Perhaps NBC's new strategy with NBC Direct is to make it so unpleasant to watch the shows offline that users are driven to Hulu by default. Or BitTorrent.

Overall, the service is sandboxed—much more so than Hulu could ever hope to be. Even worse, NBC is diluting the strength of its brand by launching different video initiatives side-by-side. Many regular Internet users—people who are 'Net savvy but don't follow the everyday soap operas like we do—have no idea that some of these services exist, what the differences are, or how to make them work. I met my first person the other day outside of the high-tech circle who even knew that NBC offered shows on its web site at all, but he wasn't aware of Hulu or NBC Direct. "Can't I just get those shows on iTunes?" he asked.